Personification in Reverse
IntroducedThe comparison can run the other way
- Unit 5 gave a human trait to a nonhuman thing. Here the CED reverses it.
- By assigning the qualities of a nonhuman object, entity or idea to a person or character, the narrator, character or speaker communicates an attitude about that person.
- So describing a man as a machine, a wall or a weather system is the same device running backwards.
Calling someone a machine may praise efficiency or protest that they never rest; direction matters.
Assigning nonhuman qualities to a person primarily...
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So the evidence points first at whoever made the comparison.
The purpose is an attitude
- The CED is explicit about what this device does: it communicates an attitude about that person or character.
- Not characterises them — communicates the speaker's attitude toward them.
- So the evidence points primarily at whoever made the comparison.
Naming what the comparison ____ the person is usually how you find the attitude.
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Agency, feeling, or the capacity to be reasoned with.
It usually takes something away
- Giving a person the qualities of an object generally removes agency, feeling, or the capacity to be reasoned with.
- He was a wall says he cannot be argued with; she went on like a clock says she cannot be interrupted.
- Name what the comparison denies the person — that is usually the attitude.
What attitude does this comparison communicate?
Sort each description of a person by the attitude behind it.
This device is always hostile toward the person described.
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It can be admiration (a tide) or pity (a shut room) — read the object's associations.
This device points at the speaker, not the subject. The CED says it communicates an attitude about that person — so calling someone a wall is primary evidence about the person who reached for that comparison, and only secondary evidence about the one described.
Match each comparison to what it displaces.
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The displaced capacity is usually the whole complaint.
Not always hostile
- The attitude can be admiration: a person described as a tide is unstoppable, not inhuman.
- It can be pity: a person described as a shut room is someone who has been closed, not someone cold.
- So read the attitude from the object's associations, not from a rule.
Put the reverse-personification pass in order.
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The attitude is the CED's stated purpose, so it comes last and matters most.
A reverse-personification pass
- Name the person and the nonhuman thing whose qualities they are given.
- Say which quality was transferred, and what human capacity it displaces.
- Then name the attitude the speaker has thereby communicated.
Her mother went on like a clock. The transferred quality is regularity; what it displaces is the capacity to be interrupted or asked. The daughter has not called her mother cruel — she has said that speaking to her is not a two-way act, which is a sharper complaint.
Assigning nonhuman qualities to a person communicates an attitude about that person — so the evidence points first at the speaker. The comparison usually displaces a human capacity (agency, feeling, being reasoned with); name what it denies. The attitude may be hostile, admiring or pitying.